Augustine’s Doctrine of the Atonement as Presented in The Trinity

In his article, “Penal Substitution in Church History,” Vlach aims to show that, along with other views of the atonement in the early church, theologians in the first millennium held to a form of penal substitution atonement (PSA).[1] To argue this, he offers citations from various works in the early church, one of which is taken from Augustine’s The Trinity: “For then the blood, since it was His who had no sin at all, was poured out for the remission of our sins.”[2] By itself, this sentence may seem to fit nicely within a twenty-first-century formulation of PSA; however, when placed within its literary context, one will see that Augustine's teaching of the atonement is unique from what most contemporary theologians would hold. Placing nomenclatures anachronistically onto authors like Augustine will overly simplify their views and subsequently limit our own understanding of them. To remedy this, this article will look to present the context for this quote of Augustine's and show that his view of the atonement as presented in The Trinity is best understood when not defined by contemporary systematic terms but is left to speak for itself.

The historical context for the writing of The Trinity is not certain. Some have argued that Augustine is offering a defence of the Nicene definition of the Trinity.[3] Others, however, do not see this as primarily a polemical work. Hill, one of the many translators of this work, argues that it is more of a task undertaken for Augustine’s own interest. He claims that it was something that took him many years to write[4] and it concerned an interest that “lay nearest the author’s heart;” that is, primarily, the quest for God.[5]

In true Augustinian fashion, Augustine addresses several different topics throughout the work, highlighting how different topics are connected to the doctrine of the Trinity. Concerning redemption, he reflects on the wonder of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit working all things together and yet at the same time, acknowledging that it is by the blood of Christ, through the death of the Son, that humans are reconciled to God.[6] Aware of the different roles within redemption, Augustine looks to expand on his view of how the atonement is brought about and he does so most notably in books four and thirteen.

To begin his explanation, Augustine argues that it is by “divine justice” that the human race was handed over to the power of Satan on account of the first sin of Adam. This original sin is subsequently passed down to all who are born “of the intercourse of the two sexes.”[7] Augustine claims that all humans are, by origin, "under the prince of the power of the air who works in the sons of unbelief (Eph 2:2).”[8] Subsequently, it is on account of original sin that all are citizens of the kingdom of Satan.[9]

Yet this handing over did not come about through an order given by God, nor was it done as a transaction between God and the devil. Rather, God “permitted it, albeit justly. When he withdrew from the sinner, the author of sin marched in.”[10] Despite this handing over, all of humanity continues to be under the law of the Lord, even though they are under “the devil’s jurisdiction.”[11] So Augustine concludes that it is through original sin that man is subjected to the devil, “through the just wrath of God.”[12] It is by God’s wrath that people are subjected to Satan’s rule. To be freed from Satan's kingdom, then, one must also be reconciled to God.

As subjects of Satan’s kingdom, Satan has the right over death. In holding on to the sins of humanity, the devil could use these sins to keep humanity “deservedly fixed in death.”[13] The devil had the “right to hold us bound to payment of the penalty.”[14] Death came as a punishment for sin and it was carried out by Satan, as the ability to kill was handed over to him by God.[15]

In order to defeat Satan, Augustine argues that it would have to be done by God’s justice rather than his power. Satan’s very downfall was his love for power and his desertion of justice,[16] and Satan leads people to follow him in likewise deserting justice and seeking after power. For God subsequently to use power to defeat Satan would be problematic. So instead, Augustine presents God as beating Satan “at the justice game, not the power game, so that men too might imitate Christ by seeking to beat the devil at the justice game, not the power game.”[17]

The justice that overpowered the devil came from Christ, and Christ overpowered Satan by dying even though he was not deserving of death. The devil has been handed the rights of those deserving death; those, according to Augustine, who are born in sin. But Jesus was not born as a product of intercourse, and therefore, was born free from original sin. When the devil killed Christ, then, he did so without warrant. Christ was not guilty of sin and therefore was not in Satan’s kingdom, “yet he killed him.”[18]

By killing Christ, the man without sin, Satan went beyond the rights that he was given. In consequence, the devil “was deservedly obliged to give us up through him he had most undeservedly condemned to death, though guilty of no sin.”[19] In taking the life of Christ when it did not rightly belong to him, he lost the hold on all those who belong to Christ. This is the transaction Augustine has in mind when he talks about the shedding of blood. Jesus’ blood was shed as a kind of price, “when the devil took it he was not enriched by it but caught and bound by it, so that we might be disentangled from his toils.”[20]

In review, it is by the wrath of God that humanity is subjected to Satan, and it is by Satan’s pride that he claimed that which was not his. By taking the life of one who did not belong to him, he had to give up those who are found in him. By having Christ die at the hands of Satan even though he was without sin, Christ not only won those found in him back from Satan, but he also satisfied God’s wrath on those people. For it is by God’s wrath that any are in Satan’s grasp, and in dying at the hands of Satan, Jesus, in a way, dies as a result of God’s wrath. By saving people from Satan, Jesus saves people from the penalty of their sin. As Aulén writes, “The deliverance of man from the power of death and the devil is at the same time his deliverance from God’s judgment.”[21] In all of this, Jesus did not defeat Satan by power, but by justice; in response, his followers are called to do the same.

What Augustine here presents in The Trinity involves many motifs that are best not confined by modern systematic definitions. In placing Augustine into late atonement frameworks, the fullness of his thought can be easily lost. But by letting him speak on his own terms, his view can help offer new insight into how the atonement can be best articulated today.

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About the Author:

Jonathan N. Cleland

Jonathan N. Cleland is a Ph.D. student at Knox College, Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto. He is a teaching assistant at Knox College, as well as at Heritage College in Cambridge, Ontario. His research focus is on the historical development of the doctrine of atonement.

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References

Augustine. The City of God Against the Pagans. Edited and translated by R. W. Dyson. Cambridge, UK: University Press, 1998.

———. The Trinity. Translated by Edmund Hill. Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991.

Aulén, Gustaf. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement. Translated by A. G. Hebert. London, UK: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1931.

Clark, Mary T. “De Trinitate” in Cambridge Companion to Augustine. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Hill, Edmund. “The place of the De Trinitate in Augustine’s work” in The Trinity, 2nd ed., translated by Edmund Hill, 18–21. Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991.

Rivière, Jean. “Le Dogme de la Rédemption chez saint Augustin.” Revue des Sciences Religieuses 7, fa. 3 (1927): 429–51.

Vlach, Michael J. “Penal Substitution in Church History.” Master’s Seminary Journal 20 (Fall 2009): 199–214.

Notes

1. See Michael J. Vlach, “Penal Substitution in Church History,” Master’s Seminary Journal 20 (Fall 2009): 199–201.  ↩

2. Augustine, On the Trinity 15, NPNF1 3:177, as cited in Vlach, “Penal Substitution in Church History,” 211.  ↩

3. For example, see Mary T. Clark, “De Trinitate,” in Cambridge Companion to Augustine, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 91–92. ↩

4. According to Hill, Augustine started writing this book around 400 and was not finished until after 420. Since he spent such a long time on this work, Hill concludes that this work could not, in Augustine’s mind, have been urgently needed by the public. Thus, it must not have been in response to any one person or occasion. See Edmund Hill, “The place of the De Trinitate in Augustine’s work” in The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill, 2nd ed. (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991), 20. ↩

5. Hill, “The place of the De Trinitate in Augustine’s work,” 18–21. ↩

6. Augustine, The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill, 2nd ed. (Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991), bk. 13., ch. 4., 11,15–12,16., pp. 356–58. ↩

7. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 4., 12,16., p. 357. The phrase, “to all who are born of the intercourse of the two sexes” is important as Christ, being born of a virgin, is excluded from this original sin and is therefore not under the dominion of Satan. As will be shown, this fact makes the doctrine of the Virgin Birth integral to Augustine’s understanding of redemption. ↩

8. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 4., 12,16., p. 357.  ↩

9. Augustine offers interesting comments on this in The City of God. Here, he argues that the devil would not have been able to lure man if man was not first pleased with himself. In stating this, the devil is not the originating source of sin but the tempter of the already prideful humanity. Man was therefore consensually placed into bondage under the rule of the devil when man decided to sin. See Augustine, The City of God Against the Pagans, ed. and trans. R.W. Dyson. Cambridge, UK: University Press, 1998), 610–12.  ↩

10. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 4., 12,16., p. 357. ↩

11. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 4., 12,16., p. 357. ↩

12. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 4., 12,16., p. 357. ↩

13. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 5., 21., p. 362.  ↩

14. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 4., ch. 3., 17., p. 170. ↩

15. See John Rivière, “Le Dogme de la Rédemption chez saint Augustin,” Revue des Sciences Religieuses 7, fa. 3 (1927): 450. Rivière helpfully defines Augustine’s view as presenting Satan as the executioner, not the master.. ↩

16. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 4., 13,17., p. 358. ↩

17. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 4., 13,17., p. 358. ↩

18. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 4., 14,18., p. 359. ↩

19. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 5., 15,19., p. 361. ↩

20. Augustine, The Trinity, bk. 13., ch. 5., 15,19., p. 361.  ↩

21. Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Atonement, trans. A. G. Hebert (London, ENG: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1931), 59. ↩

New Research Fellow: Dr John Meade

In August the research fellows welcomed Dr John Meade to the Center’s board of research fellows. Here is a brief bio about Dr Meade.

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Dr. John Meade is Associate Professor of Old Testament and Co-Director of the Text & Canon Institute at Phoenix Seminary. He serves as co-chairman of the Septuagint Studies section at the Evangelical Theological Society and Member at Large on the Executive Committee of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies. His research interests include canon formation, Old Testament textual criticism, Origen’s Hexapla and the philological project of the Caesarean Library, and the biblical languages.

 Dr. Meade has published articles on Origen’s Hexapla, Septuagint, and Old Testament Textual Criticism. He co-authored The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (OUP 2018) and his A Critical Edition of the Hexaplaric Fragments of Job 22–42 (Peeters forthcoming) will appear soon. He is a member of ETS, SBL, and IOSCS. He has just returned from moderating a workshop on Early Christians and the Books at the Edges of the Canon and giving a paper on Origen’s philological work on books outside of the Jewish canon at the International Conference on Patristic Studies in Oxford.

You can follow him on Twitter @drjohnmeade and he blogs at the Evangelical Textual Criticism Blog.

Book Notice: Christ Redeemed 'Us' from the Curse of the Law: A Jewish Martyrological Reading of Galatians 3.13

We are delighted to see the release of a new book by one of our Sr. Research Fellows, Jarvis Williams. He is an Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Southern Seminary. In Christ Redeemed “Us” from the Curse of the Law: A Jewish Martyrological Reading of Galatians 3:13 (Library of New Testament Studies), Williams engages the intersection of Galatians and Jewish Martyrological literature in antiquity.

Here is the blurb from bloomsbury site.

Jarvis J. Williams argues that the Jewish martyrological ideas, codified in 2 and 4 Maccabees and in selected texts in LXX Daniel 3, provide an important background to understanding Paul's statements about the cursed Christ in Gal. 3.13, and the soteriological benefits that his death achieves for Jews and Gentiles in Galatians. Williams further argues that Paul modifies Jewish martyrology to fit his exegetical, polemical, and theological purposes, in order to persuade the Galatians not to embrace the 'other' gospel of their opponents. 

In addition to providing a detailed and up to date history of research on the scholarship of Gal. 3.13, Williams provides five arguments throughout this volume related to the scriptural, theological and conceptual, lexical, grammatical and polemical points of contact, and finally the discontinuities between Galatians and Jewish martyrological ideas. Drawing on literature from Second Temple traditions to directly compare with Gal. 3.13, Williams adds new insights to Paul's defense of his Torah-free-gentile-inclusive gospel, and his rhetoric against his opponents.

You can purchase the book at Bloomsbury or Amazon.

Book Review: St. Augustine’s Interpretation of the Psalms of Ascent

—Published in Fides et Humilitas, no. 3 (2016): 144–147—

Gerard McLarney, Adjunct Professor at St. Joseph’s College, University of Alberta, has written a monograph on Augustine’s interpretation of the Psalms of Ascent, contributing to the field of theological exegesis (p.4). He argues that Augustine uses a hermeneutic of alignment, aligning “the listeners and the text within this unfolding narrative,” a narrative chronicling a journey of salvation spanning from Abel to Augustine’s present (p.37). Augustine’s alignment hermeneutic allowed his audience to participate “in the life of the text” (35).

McLarney demonstrates his thesis with an introduction, five chapters, and a conclusion. The monograph’s title, however, unsuccessfully describes the book’s contents. It is only in the fourth and fifth chapters that McLarney directly deals with Augustine’s interpretation of the Psalms of Ascent, meaning that the first 122 pages describe introductory and related issues. Chapter 1 describes patristic exegesis of the Psalter in general, while the second chapter details how the Psalms of ascent were delivered and transmitted. The third chapter addresses the social, cultural and ecclesial context of the homilies.

Even though the monograph’s title may not accurately describe its contents, the first three chapters provide a learned introduction to issues surrounding Augustine’s use of the Psalter. The skill with which McLarney wields both primary and secondary sources in, for example, the third chapter’s discussion on Augustine’s context bestows upon readers a wealth of measured knowledge that will inspire junior scholars and will inform interested readers.

McLarney’s monograph on Augustine also aids Christian ministers. For example, Augustine’s alignment hermeneutic implies that preaching a text’s original setting is insufficient; a text’s meaning must be interpreted in the local church. The text and reader are the place or context of interpretation (p.34). In other words, Augustine advocates contextualizing Scripture to bridge the gap between the “then” and “now.” Whatever one’s conviction is on the issue of contextualization, McLarney confronts readers with relevant issues of the day that shine from the past.

Additionally, McLarney provides rationale for why Augustine interprets a particular Psalm in the way that he does. Readers of ancient texts know that discerning an author’s rationale or assumptions behind an interpretation can be quite difficult. McLarney details such assumptions when, for example, he speaks of Augustine’s interpretation of Ps 119 (Eng: 120) in which Augustine interprets the Psalm as “a pilgrimage to the heavenly Jerusalem” (p.148). “The Bishop’s rationale,” writes McLarney, “is based on his interpretation of the superscription, and other biblical references, in addition to his theological presumptions about the fallen human condition, the interiority of the ascent, and the salvific descent and ascent of Christ” (p.148).

Due, in part, to his careful reading of Augustine that takes into account his rationale for interpretation, McLarney’s monograph also contributes to the retrieval movement, a movement that aims to recover earlier Christian tradition to reinvigorate the church. Augustine’s theological exegesis of Psalms challenges modern conceptions of exegesis. Even though few modern scholars will adopt Augustine’s model of the theological exegesis, awareness of the bishop’s thought and of early Christian exegesis will allow scholars to become more aware of their own situatedness and the situatedness of their interpretations.

Consider, for instance, Augustine’s interpretation of Ps 121 (Eng: 122). He argues that the city being built in Ps 122 is the heavenly Jerusalem, not the earthly city. Immediately, one may suspect Augustine to have allegorically read the text, but actually he “appeals to authorial intent” (p.172). After weaving together texts that furnish a biblical-theological understanding of the city, Augustine explains that the Psalmist wrote of Jerusalem which is (a) being built (aedificatur) (b) like a city (ut civitas). The bishop reasons that the passive present participle (“being built”) cannot be David’s city, which already has been constructed but it must be another. Indeed, the Psalmist’s Jerusalem is only “like a city.” Thus, the Psalmist himself engages in a figural reading akin to Peter’s words in 1 Pet 2:5 where “Christians are to be built ‘like living stones, into a spiritual house’” (p.172).

Such an interpretation combines grammatical and theological exegesis into an undivided whole, and McLarney’s presentation of it rejects a fine distinction between historical and spiritual exegesis. From a twenty-first century point of view, such interpretations appear at first blush allegorical. But McLarney makes readers aware that Augustine uses grammatical and theological reasoning to derive his interpretation, exposing the situatedness of readers who might otherwise dismiss Augustine’s reading as non-historical and invalid.

McLarney’s monograph deserves to be read by Augustine enthusiasts and those interested in patristic interpretation in general. Indeed, the breadth of McLarney’s scholarship lends itself to history, textual criticism, and hermeneutics, making his volume valuable to different sorts of readers.

Bibliographical Information

Gerard McLarney. St. Augustine’s Interpretation of the Psalms of Ascent. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2014. Pp. xviii + 244. ISBN: 978-0-8132-2703-0. $65.00 [Hardback].

About the Author:

Wyatt A. Graham

Wyatt A. Graham is a Ph.D. candidate at Southern Seminary and currently serves as Executive Director of the Gospel Coalition Canada.

Twitter:

@wagraham

Website:

DeTrinitate